The Monkey System or Every One For Himself Henry Clay says "Walk in and see the new improved grand original American System!" The cages are labeled: "Home, Consumption, Internal, Improv". This 1831 cartoon ridiculing Clay's American System depicts monkeys, labeled as being different parts of a nation's economy, stealing each other's resources (food) with commentators describing it as either great or a humbug.

Development of a system of internal improvements (such as roads and canals) which would knit the nation together and be financed by the tariff and land sales

Clay protested that the West, which opposed the tariff, should support it since urban factory workers would be consumers of western foods. In Clay's view, the South (which also opposed high tariffs) should support them because of the ready market for cotton in northern mills. This last argument was the weak link. The South never strongly supported the American System and had access to plenty of markets for its cotton exports.

The American System did not enjoy overall success, however; in 1830, President Jackson rejected a bill which would allow the federal government to purchase stock in the Maysville, Washington, Paris, and Lexington Turnpike Road Company, which had been organized to construct a road linking Lexington and the Ohio River, the entirety of which would be in the state of Kentucky. Jackson's Maysville Road veto was due to both his personal conflict with Clay and his ideological objections.

Main points

The establishment of a protective tariff, a 20%–25% tax on imported goods, would protect a nation's business from foreign competition. Congress passed a tariff in 1816 which made European goods more expensive and encouraged consumers to buy relatively cheap American-made goods.

Among the most important internal improvements created under the American System was the Cumberland Road.

Henry Clay's "American System," devised in the burst of nationalism that followed the War of 1812, remains one of the most historically significant examples of a government-sponsored program to harmonize and balance the nation's agriculture, commerce, and industry. This "System" consisted of three mutually reinforcing parts: a tariff to protect and promote American industry; a national bank to foster commerce; and federal subsidies for roads, canals, and other "internal improvements" to develop profitable markets for agriculture. Funds for these subsidies would be obtained from tariffs and sales of public lands. Clay argued that a vigorously maintained system of sectional economic interdependence would eliminate the chance of renewed subservience to the free-trade, laissez-faire "British System."